Joel Schumacher directs Susan Sarandon, Brad Renfro and Tommy Lee Jones in this courtroom thriller about a trailer trash kid who hires a lawyer to protect him from the Mafia and The FBI. 

We used to get a couple of John Grisham adaptations a year in the 90s… and then they just stopped. I’m not saying that’s a terrible thing (his best movie The Rainmaker is only just on the other side of the average fence from his worst movie The Chamber), his work follows an unwavering pulpy formula that rarely taxes the brain cells. But, as a teenager, I did enjoy reading his blend of one shlubbily idealistic Southern lawyer railing against either the mob or multinational corruption or those untrustworthy government agencies (usually all three) that often had a lot of sympathy for the poor or dispossessed. The dry and often bloodless potboilers that got churned out into Screen 3 of the ABC had stellar casts and a slick, sultry look. The Client is no better, no worse than any of the others. The hyperbolic chase scenes seem rote, the top notch actors unstretched by their fake blends of exposition and legal sparring. But it kills a pair of hours nicely. They all do.

5